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Wire Harness Components

The following elements can be part of a wire harness within the nailboard environment:

Wire harness

"Wire harness" is a node in the nailboard's tree view which comprises all the components of the wire harness it was derived from. The Wire harness node is also hierarchically higher than all the objects related to the wire harness components. These are connectable object symbols, connectable object and special components tables, spider diagrams, inner and outer dimensions, and also the objects manually added to the wire harness within the nailboard (using the Add to wire harness command). Last but not least, the wire harness node is also hierarchically higher than the wire harness components which are not displayed in the tree view such as control points and nails.

The main goal of the Wire harness node is the modification of all wire harnesses and their associated objects and components together. It is, e.g., of advantage if you want to move the entire wire harness within the nailboard's working window, hide whole wire harnesses, or show only a certain wire harness, zoom to a selected wire harness, etc.

A wire harness as a unit has some specific properties. These are available in the General section of the properties panel when a wire harness is selected in the tree view. The following properties are available:

Property

Description

Name

Name of the wire harness. This property cannot be changed here.

Layer

Layer of the entire wire harness. This setting is available for plenty of objects, but in case of wire harnesses you can determine a layer for all its components and the related data.

Scale ratio

Allows to determine a scale (as a ratio of two integer values) for the entire wire harness.

Note:

Individual wire harness components such as wires, cables, and bundles cannot be scaled separately.

Bundles

A bundle is a node in the nailboard's tree view which represents the "workspace bundle" it was derived from. As subnodes the bundle can contain wires and cables which are routed in it.

A bundle can be hatched in the nailboard environment. Hatching can be determined (including its settings) in the Display section of the properties panel.

Cables

A cable is a node in the nailboard's tree view which represents a cable or empty cable used in the workspace. As subnodes the cable contains wires.

A cable can be hatched in the nailboard environment. Hatching can be determined (including its settings) in the Display section of the properties panel.

Wires

A wire is an end node in the tree view. With regard to the workspace environment, it represents manually placed wires (or imported ones) or the so-called "virtual wires" which are parts of cables. An individual wire can occur in the tree view several times. In addition to the Wires node (with only manually placed wires and imported ones), it can also occur as a subnode of bundles and cables.

Parts

The Parts node includes the following subnodes:

Icon

Subnode

Connectors

Connectable objects

Terminals

Special components

Leading parts

Grommets

Clips

These subnodes can contain other objects as further subnodes, namely connectable object symbols and connectable object tables for connectable objects and special components tables and special component diagrams for special components.

Symbols

This node contains all the symbols (part symbols and imported symbols) which have been associated with the wire harness using the Add to wire harness command.

2D elements

This node contains all the inner and outer dimensions and also the free 2D objects which have been associated with the wire harness using the Add to wire harness command.

Control points

Control points are special objects which are not available in the tree view. They are created automatically by the nailboard derivation process (as images of workspace-specific control points), or they can be added manually using the Control point command.

Note:

The nailboard environment does not display control points or labels of wires! The user-defined control points cannot be added either.

The appearance of individual control point symbols can be determined in the properties panel. It is possible to edit the Color, Line type and Line thickness properties in the Display section and the Size property in the Advanced section.

When a bundle / cable shape is bent in a control point, its appearance can be affected by determining a bending radius. A value of "0" displays the bending as pointed, any values other than zero represent a rounded bend. The Original bending radius property is read-only and is internally determined by the minimum bending radius of the cable / bundle content. This means, the Bending radius property should be set to zero (for pointed bending) or to a value equal to or larger than the Original bending radius property. The state of this property can be checked using the View > Bending radius command.

Breakpoints

A breakpoint is a point where a bundle or cable is interrupted using the Edit > Place gap command. Such a point is represented by two breaklines and a value. The type of the value can be set in the Advanced section of the breakpoint properties. The Shrinking property represents the resulting length of the segment in the nailboard, the Gap length is the length of the segment which has been omitted, the Residual length ratio is a proportion of the Shrinking value, and the Only gap symbol allows for hiding the Gap length value.

Pins

A pin is a point where a wire ends. Pins are not displayed in the tree view.

The pin itself has no special properties to be determined. Additional notes, which can be displayed next to pins, can be determined in the properties panel for the corresponding fan point.